Genny slid a sundress over her shoulders, a pale blue affair with thin straps and a hem which tickled the top of her knees. Her hair fell in long curls. Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep hadn’t caused them any ill-effect. Genny thought about brushing them out to put her hair in a ponytail but decided, for no discernible reason, to leave them as they were.
Even though she was late, she stopped at the diner for breakfast. The waitress smacked a piece of gum as she waited for Genny to order.
“Need another minute?” the waitress asked, her patience thin as the line between false hope and despair.
“No. I got it.” Genny checked the menu one more time. “I’d like two eggs, two pancakes, two strips of bacón, and hashbrowns. And a refill on the coffee, please. When you get the chance?”
“How d’ya want your eggs?”
This was an easy one for Genny. “Over easy.”
“And your pancakes?”
Minor difficulty. “Uh … round.”
“Your bacon?”
“Bacón.”
The waitress’ eyes went askew. The gum took a heftier chewing.
“How d’ya want it?”
Genny was entering a gray area. “From a pig. Unless you got another kind you recommend.”
The waitress doodled on her order pad. “Hashbrowns?” she asked.
Genny knew of only one type. “Brown, please. And hashed.”
“She must be new to breakfast,” Genny thought.
“She must be Korean,” the waitress thought.
Alone now, Genny retreated to the place in her mind where memories of last night and Laverne and Shirley reruns lingered. Most of the party was a haze, the result of the glass of champagne she drank. She sort of remembered the part where Country abandoned her. The incident, where two guys, Lenny and Squiggy – those names stuck out clear as a bell – burst into the apartment then danced with a little person around a miniature version of Stonehenge, was bright as the noonday sun. She made a note to limit herself to a half glass from now on.
One other memory stuck out, an emotion really. She remembered being angry at Country, although she couldn’t quite put cap to pen. On the other hand, she must not have been that angry seeing as how she was on her way to visit him on set.
“Better let it simmer,” she said. “That way, when I do remember, I can explode in a ball of passive-aggressive fury. He’ll never see it coming.”
“You talkin’ to me, hon,” the waitress said as she set down Genny’s food.
Genny looked up at her. “No. Just figuring out things I can do to keep my guy friend off guard. They’re so simple-minded sometimes.”
The waitress nodded. “I like to do that thing where I give my boyfriend the silent treatment, then make him figure out what he did wrong. If he loved me, he’d know.”
“Sounds like you’re mad at him now,” Genny said.
“Uh huh,” the waitress answered.
“What’d he do wrong this time?”
“I don’t know.”
Genny and the waitress shared an evil cackle.
“Enjoy your food,” the waitress said.
Genny did. By the time the last sip of coffee washed down the final bite of pig bacon, Genny’s good mood had returned. She paid for her meal, hailed a taxi, climbed in, and headed to her destination. When they arrived, the taxi driver received a generous tip, and Genny clambered out of the front seat much to the driver’s relief. He left muttering something about ‘that crazy blonde’ in a mix of broken English and Egyptian Arabic.
“10:30,” she said to herself. “I’m fashionably late.”
Two men stood talking at the guard shack. One of them, an older man who had a faint resemblance to Country, looked behind him while the other man pointed at something. The older man climbed into a golf cart and took off in a hurry.
“Hi,” Genny said to the guard with hair the same color as his sunburned skin. “Is there a problem? I saw your friend zoom out of here.”
“Nope. Just time for Franklin to do his rounds. What can I do you for?”
“My name is Genny Haverford. I’m here to see Country Bivins.”
The guard checked the guest list, flipping through a couple pages. “Don’t see you here,” he said.
“You sure? You might want to check under Paisley. Or Marvin.”
“Still no,” the guard said after a brief perusal.
“Hmm. That’s interesting. I’m pretty sure he told me to come by today. I remember that pretty well. Although, I was tired and a little bit tipsy. So maybe I misheard it. That happens sometimes with me. I misremember things. Like when my Aunt Margarita – that wasn’t her real name; she just liked happy hour at La Casa de Comida a little too much – found that letter in her mailbox that didn’t belong to her. It was actually for the Browns, a nice family with a dog that was, let’s say, flatulent, to be kind. You know how those big ones get. Their doggie butt cheeks get to all a silently flappin’. Next thing you know, everybody’s got their faces buried in their shirts, and Uncle Martini (his real name) is running for the highlands. Anyway, he, that is Country, said, ‘Come by today.’ Of course, that was around midnight. We were on the phone, Country and me – Country’s not his real name; I think he got the nickname for his love of big country breakfasts; I had one of those this morning; No. That’s not right. Not about the big country breakfast. I did have one of those this morning. About his nickname – and he goes, ‘Come over today.’ Now, seeing as that was around midnight and perhaps a trifle before, he might have meant yesterday. And by yesterday, I don’t mean tomorrow yesterday. I mean today yesterday.”
Halfway through, the guard lost his will to live and tumbled into a deep coma. Genny’s quick thinking and knowledge of CPR brought him back in time for the second half. A series of self-inflicted head bangs only succeeded in giving the guard a bad headache. He settled into his chair and waited for the misery to wear itself out.
“So, as you see, the ball python got its name from the way the Amazons would kick it. And that’s how soccer was invented.”
Silence reigned on the set. The guard watched Genny’s lips to see if there’d be any more flappin’. She just stood there with an expression a shoe might have when it wraps itself around the perfect foot.
“Are you done?” he asked.
Genny raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“Like I said, there’s no mention of a Genny or Genesis or Paisley or Country or Marvin or Polycarp or Marcus Aurelius or any other of those names you said. Neither for today nor for tomorrow nor for tomorrow’s yesterday. Nothing.”
“Check again, please,” she said.
“No. I’ve checked it approximately twenty times. I’m not doing it again.”
Her face showed a hint of anxiety. The real reason she had been angry at Country came back into view.
“Could you give him a call?” She checked the clock in the guard shack. It read eleven o’clock. “I’m an hour late, and he’s probably getting worried.”
“No, ma’am. I think I’ve humored you enough.”
Genny didn’t recall a single funny thing he’d said. “Well, make me laugh one more time,” she said. “Please.”
The guard shook his head, rolled his eyes, and snorted all at the same time. “If this will get you out of my hair.” He dialed the phone. “But if I don’t get confirmation, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Genny heard the faint sound of ringing, followed by a soft, ‘Hello.’ The guard turned away from Genny and put his free hand to his free earlobe.
“Yeah. This is Jamie at the guard shack. I’ve got a Genny looking for a Marvin or Country. She says she got a verbal invite to show up on set. Uh huh. Oh. You do know a Marvin.” He covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Genny. “Marvin Bivins?”
She nodded.
Jamie spoke back into the phone. “Yeah. Marvin Bivins. Uh huh. Uh huh. Oh. Um … well. Hmm. That’s unfortunate. Yeah. You sure?” His lips did an awkward dance. “OK. I got it. I’ll tell her. OK. Bye.”
The receiver rested in its dock. He looked at her like Beelzebub might when reporting to Satan that God had once again foiled their plans.
“I’ve got good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”
Genny did a best-of-five coin flip. “I’ll take the good first.”
“There is an actor, Marvin Bivins, on the set of ‘The Last Catastrophe,’ who says he knows you.”
“Great. What’s the bad news?”
Jamie ahemmed and ahawed for a good twelve seconds. “Well … you see … it’s like this ….”
“Just get to the point, man,” Genny yelled. “I don’t have all day for you to finish your story.”
“He doesn’t want to see you. In fact, he said to make sure you’re kept off the set.”
The words pierced Genny’s heart as surely as a knife would have.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jamie said. “I didn’t want to ….”
But Genny didn’t hear the rest. She was already in the front seat of a cab driven by an Egyptian immigrant who made the mistake of not checking first to see who his passenger was.
“Who was that?” Franklin asked as he parked the golf cart.
“Some girl trying to fake her way on set. Does it happen a lot?”
“Not that often,” Franklin said. “That wasn’t Genny Haverford, was it?”
“No. She said her name was Lisa Toppin.”
“Oh. Has a Genny Haverford dropped by?”
Jamie shook his head. “That Lisa girl was our only visitor.”
“Alright.” Franklin sat down in the guard chair as Jamie took off. “Thanks for covering for me.”
The red-haired guard hustled away, ditching his security uniform when he was out of sight. Franklin looked over the guest list and checked the clock. He scratched his chin with the edge of a pen.
“When is that Genny girl getting here?” he asked himself, still scratching but moving the pen to his cheek. “She’s over an hour late. Marvin’ll sure to be worried.”
He peered into the street and waited.